


orbit back into my arms

by violentdarlings



Series: Entrapment Boning [3]
Category: Entrapment (1999)
Genre: Angst, Catherine Zeta-Jones - Freeform, Entrapment, F/M, Older Man/Younger Woman, Reconciliation, Sean Connery - Freeform, Underloved Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reconciliation, and diamonds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	orbit back into my arms

She’s laughing like a wild woman as they stumble back into their hotel room around four am. “How do you stay so calm?” she asks, throwing her beautiful arms wide. “This is incredible!”

He knows what she means. Stealing is the best drug there is; it fizzles in the veins, floods the body with strength. When he was first starting out, some forty years ago, he couldn’t get enough of it; but then again, he was stealing then for profit. These days if he thieves something, it’s for the thrill of the chase and even now, he still feels the echo of that sensation.

She takes the diamond from the satchel, turns it to catch the faint light. The hotel room is a dive, really, to keep them off the radar, and the job was outrageously simple. In, out, very easy considering their mixed skill set, and yet he has the nagging feeling that something is amiss. “What do you want to do with it?” he inquires, still wary around her after their venomous argument four weeks ago. As though by mutual agreement, neither of them have brought it up, and they have moved around one another with building tension. The job was almost a relief, in that sense, to break the pattern. And now she is alive with energy, wired. The adrenaline thing. She’d been trembling when she’d got out the car, her smile a mile wide.

“Oh, I think it’ll look amazing anywhere. But maybe we should use it as a paperweight, to hold the maps down when we’re planning.”

He regards her neutrally. “This diamond is worth fifty million dollars,” he reminds her evenly as she tosses it from palm to palm. It’s the size of a fist.

“Oh, I know. But we have five hundred million each, minus the cost of this venture. I think we can live off of that for a while. Unless you want your share.” She holds the vast gem out to him, and he makes a dismissive gesture.

“I think it will last us some time,” he agrees. “Barring any extravagant purchases.”

“You mean another Jag?”

“That wasn’t mine,” he defends, and she smacks him lightly on the arm. She hasn’t touched him - save for the practical, platonic touches required for work - for a month. He’s missed it like a hole in the heart.

“Whatever.”

“Whatever, indeed.” He takes the vast gem from her hand, turning it over. “Now you’re a jewel-thieving, art-stealing bank robber. What do you have in mind for your next venture?” She mulls it over for a few moments before replying.

“I know one thing,” she says decidedly, and he lifts an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to do another job like this one,” she says gently, and he blinks hard, stung.

“Well, we don’t have to. It’s time I was retiring, really…” He has no intention of such, but he’d do it for her. But Gin is huffing an irritated breath, shaking her head.

“For such a clever man, you can be unbearably stupid,” she says tartly. “I don’t want to hang up our lock picks. I mean, the last month. Being so angry at one another.”

Wearily, he sits down on the bed. “I don’t want to fight either,” he admits, feeling tension begin to leak out of his limbs as she sits beside him, shoulder brushing his own. “I just don’t see how this is going to be possible.” She nods, reaching for his hand, and after only a brief hesitation he offers it to her.

“I think we should take some time off,” she replies. “Let’s have sex in every room in the castle. Go for walks. Swim in the loch. Do whatever the hell we want. The problem is,” she says earnestly, “is that right now we can’t keep our hands off each other. At least, I can’t keep my hands off you.” She ducks her head, faint pinkness in her cheeks, and he loves her occasional moments of shyness.

“The same for me,” he assures her. And it’s the truth. He had his flings in his youth, of course, but Gin is different. Gin is like taking a breath of fresh air after quietly suffocating for sixty years. Gin is his match not just intellectually but in terms of sheer shrewdness, which he finds overwhelmingly attractive. Gin is more innocent than she thinks she is, and Gin is beautiful. It is as though all his suppressed emotions for many years has exploded and latched onto this girl, and he can’t bring himself to regret it.

“So let’s go home,” she says. “To our castle.” She chuckles for a moment. “That sounds ridiculous. Like we’re in a Disney movie or something.”

“I happen to like my castle,” he replies, faux-offended.

“It’ll look amazing with a diamond in it,” she considers. He kisses the hollow of her throat and she sinks into him, a pleased purr slipping from her throat.

“You’d look amazing in it. That’s what I’ll do. Take you home, dress you in diamonds and nothing else, lie you out on my bed.”

“That sounds rather chilly,” she observes and in retaliation he bites her earlobe, and she shudders.

“I’d say I’ll keep you warm, but you know I’m not fond of clichés,” he replies, and touches his lips to hers.

They get home a day and a half later. This time, they throw caution to the wind. Well, as much as they ever do. She uses a fake passport and a blonde wig; they pretend they don’t know each other right up until they’re seated alongside one another. And then, when the other passengers and staff are asleep or immersed in movies, they (as Gin puts it) make out like teenagers. And through the cab from Heathrow a hotel for dinner, she holds his hand. She feeds him bites of her chocolate cheesecake. She puts a napkin ring on his finger and asks him to marry her, and is not offended by his ‘no, are you insane?’ Rather, she laughs, and replies in the affirmative.

It is as though a weight has been lifted from them. She is effervescent with happiness, and her lightness in turn spurs him on. By the time they step into the castle again (diamond in hand) and place it on a shelf, he feels twenty years younger. The sun is just setting outside but the wind is beginning to bite. He’s always liked the cold.

“I’m going upstairs,” she calls as she sheds her overcoat and slips off the blue jacket underneath.

“Shower?” he calls after her, cringing at the domesticity that has invaded his life.

“Maybe,” she shouts, and anything beyond that is lost in the thick stone of the walls. And despite the fact he knows his hot water service is temperamental at best, she doesn’t appear for a good three hours. At that point he gives up on perusing the usual host of emails from other thieves, auction houses, art dealers, and a couple from Thibideaux informing him that Gin was sighted in Dubai and Bangkok, two cities he happens to know for certain she’s been nowhere near.

Good to see the company he’d (very discreetly) hired to create a handful of decoy Gins had been showing up to work. He sends them a random string of code from a dummy email account; they’ll know what it means, and keep the FBI and whoever else is hunting Gin busy. He sees no reason to burden her with this, of course. That’s what he tells himself, but the truth is that sixty years of trusting only himself is a very hard habit to break.

“Gin?” he calls, and finds her, eventually, sound asleep on her bed, still swathed in a towel from her shower. He contemplates crawling in beside her, but settles for tucking her beneath the blankets, brushing her damp hair back from her flushed face. “Good night, Gin.”

_xx_

He wakes to her crawling into his bed around two am, her bare feet icy against his shins. “Bloody hell,” he growls. “Don’t startle me like that. You haven’t forgotten your dunking in the lake at Bedford Palace, have you?”

“Hush,” she mumbles, half-asleep, and he opens his arms to her as she nestles against his chest. “Woke up without you. Stupid man.“ He chuckles, petting her hair. She’s naked, as his her custom for sleeping, her skin chilled from her journey to his room.

“You’ll catch pneumonia if you walk around naked, dear,” he informs her, and is rewarded by her cold nose at his throat. “Very well. Good night again, Gin.”

“’Night, Mac.”

_xx_

He rises around five and leaves her snuggled up in his bed. Part of him would happily stay there beside her, but he’s coming to learn that he needs his alone time, if their relationship will last longer than a few weeks.

Which is how she finds him. He’s reading the newspaper online, writing notes occasionally, when she comes downstairs bundled up for the cold.

“Let’s go for a run,” she suggests. He lifts an eyebrow at her, sipping his tea thoughtfully.

“It’s barely six am,” he tells her, and she shrugs.

“So?”

“You are aware I’m thirty-five years older than you.” She snorts.

“You’re fitter than I am!” she argues. “What happened to swimming in the loch an hour each day?”

“I do that,” he assures her. “That particular morning, though, I just needed to get you out of the way. Thibideaux was bringing equipment.”

“Deceitful bastard,” she mutters, his duplicity evidently still a sore spot.

“Hypocrite,” he answers. “Did I not sit in this very spot and listen to you sell me out to Cruz?”

“Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves,” she retorts smartly, and he flings a pen at her.

“All right, all right. You win.”

“I always do,” she says triumphantly.

“Rembrandt,” he answers, and it’s enough to wipe the smirk off her face. That’s another thing he’s learning. It’s always been a battle of wits between them. There’s no reason for that to change. “But you’re making breakfast when we get back.” He lifts his cup to his lips to drain the rest of the tea.

“Deal. But only if you go down on me later.” He chokes, and shoots her a glare of mingled exasperation and inquiry. She shrugs. “What? I’ve missed it.” She trots outside, humming cheerfully.

“I’m getting too old for this,” he murmurs, pulling on his jacket and following her.

_xx_

She makes breakfast, he finishes his newspaper. He washes the dishes and she dries. She disappears to shower and he interrupts her halfway through by turning on the hot tap in the kitchen.

“MAC!” He hears her shriek from two floors away. He pokes his head into the steam-filled bathroom.

“Yes, dear?” She clears away the steam with one hand and glares at him through the glass.

“You did that on purpose!” He steps in, minding the puddle of water, and raises an eyebrow, the picture of supreme innocence.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The water just ran freezing, you Scottish bastard!” She steps out of the shower and he hands her a towel.

“We are in a castle,” he says dryly, easily dodging her elbow jab to his ribs, and follows her to her bedroom.

“Are you going to watch me dress?” she inquires, and he chuckles, shaking his head.

“I have a promise to keep,” he says lightly, and strips the towel from her body, backing her up to the bed.

“Mac?” she asks, goose bumps rising on her long limbs in the cool air, sitting on her bed. “What are you about?” In response he drops to his knees, pressing his lips to her ankle, and the breath leaves her body in one long gasp. “Ah,” she acknowledges. “You’re a man of your word.”

“Of course I am,” he murmurs, kissing the inside of her knee, the swell of her thigh.

“Well, except for - oh, God.” Whatever she is about to say is broken off by her gasp, and he finds that this is his favourite way of shutting her up.

Later, they’ve missed lunch in order to stay in bed, she’s peppered in marks where his mouth has been on her, and he has her in his arms. “What are we doing?” she asks dryly. “A pair of idiots.” And he remembers the first time he’d ever seen her in person:

_Delicately, he thieves the gun from under her pillow, turning it over in his hands. She stirs, and he retreats to the corner of the room, letting the darkness hide his features as she sits bolt upright._

_“Rule Number One. Never carry a gun.” It’s lucky that he knows those words so well, because all other thought has fled from his head. The sight of her full breasts with their dark nipples, the pool of the sheet in her lap, the inky fall of her hair - she is lovely, and he is perfectly aware she knows it. “You carry a gun, you may be tempted to use it.”_

_“What are you doing here?” she asks, a hint of steel in her voice, and on one hand he knows. She’s the prize, and she is what will get Thibadeaux off his back, permanently._

_But on the other hand, he has no idea._

“A pair of idiots, indeed,” he replies tartly, but there are worse things.


End file.
